Nowadays, with the advance of technologies, the use of auxiliary products (such as cooling and warming blankets, essential oil lamps, and air purifiers) to enhance the quality of life by people is increasing. Thus, it is important for manufacturers to know how to improve and optimize traditional auxiliary products to satisfy various needs of users.
Taiwan Utility Model Pat. No. M288532, entitled as “Structure of cooling and warming blanket” is issued to the inventor of the present invention on Oct. 14, 2005, as shown in FIG. 1, wherein the structure comprises a blanket 11 which has a surface provided with a wound and long pipe 12. The pipe 12 has a first end used as an inlet and a second end used as an outlet, wherein the inlet and the outlet are formed on a side end of the blanket 11. The pipe 12 has an outer circumference, which is formed with a planar outer circumference face 124 corresponding to the surface of the blanket 11. The pipe 12 further has an inner circumference, which is formed with a rib 125 opposite to the planar outer circumference face 124. The surface of the blanket 11, which is mounted with the pipe 12, is further provided with a cover member 13 (such as a sponge) for forming a plane of a cooling and warming blanket. Furthermore, the inlet and the outlet of the pipe 12 are mounted with an inlet joint 14 and an outlet joint 15, respectively. Therefore, a liquid (such as cooled water or warmed water) can be firstly inputted to the pipe 12 through the inlet joint 14, and then outputted from the pipe 12 through the outlet joint 15, so that the liquid can be guided back to a cooling and warming device (not shown), in order to uniformly distribute the cooling/warming temperature of the surface of the blanket 11.
In a hot summer night, the cooling and warming blanket can help a user to comfortably sleep. In a cold winter environment, it can help to comfortably warm the user. Thus, the cooling and warming blanket is very popular. However, there are still several disadvantages of the cooling and warming blanket as follows:
1. The Complicated Structure of the Cooling and Warming Blanket:
Referring to FIG. 1, the structure of the cooling and warming blanket comprises the blanket 11, the pipe 12, and the cover member 13, wherein the blanket 11 is made of latex fabric and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), the pipe 12 is a bendable soft pipe, and the cover member 13 is a sponge. Thus, the cooling and warming blanket uses many materials. Furthermore, the pipe 12 must provide the planar outer circumference face 124 for speedily transferring the temperature of the liquid in the pipe 12 to the blanket 11 and for forming greater contact area between the pipe 12 and the blanket 11, in order to enhance the efficiency of the cooling and warming blanket. Moreover, the pipe 12 must provide the rib 125 formed on the inner circumference opposite to the planar outer circumference face 124, so that the pipe 12 will not be pressed to stop the liquid from flowing therethrough when the user lies on the blanket 11. For carrying out the foregoing functions, the pipe 12 must be processed into a predetermined shape in advance before manufacturing the cooling and warming blanket, resulting in increasing the preparation of the cooling and warming blanket and the manufacture cost thereof.
2. Many Processes for Producing the Cooling and Warming Blanket:
Referring to FIG. 1, the structure of the cooling and warming blanket comprises three layers, i.e. the blanket 11, the pipe 12, and the cover member 13. When manufacturing the cooling and warming blanket, a worker must firstly wind the pipe 12, and then mount the pipe 12 on a surface of the blanket 11. After this, the worker further lays the cover member 13 on the surface of the blanket 11 mounted with the pipe 12, so that the cover member 13 covers the pipe 12 to form a plane. However, in the foregoing processes, related manufacturers must manually finish the processes for producing the entire cooling and warming blanket, because the processes are hard to be automatically finished. As a result, the manufacture efficiency of the cooling and warming blanket is extremely low, while many manual processes tends to limit the yield of the cooling and warming blanket, resulting in affecting the product quality thereof.
3. The Excessive Thickness of the Cooling and Warming Blanket:
Referring back to FIG. 1, the structure of the cooling and warming blanket guides the liquid by the pipe 12 for transferring the temperature of the liquid to the blanket 11, in order to maintain the temperature of the surface of the blanket 11. Furthermore, the cover member 13 is used to cover the pipe 12 for increasing the softness and the elasticity of the cooling and warming blanket. For carrying out the foregoing functions of the cooling and warming blanket, related manufacturers can not decrease the entire thickness thereof, resulting in occupying relative large storage space to store it and causing problems of transporting it. Moreover, for users, except for difficulties of storing the cooling and warming blanket, it is also inconvenient to be carried to the outdoors.
As a result, it is important for the related manufacturers to think how to develop a cooling and warming blanket, which only needs simple processes and has simple structure, in order to substantially enhance the manufacture efficiency thereof.